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When Alfred Binet created the precursor to the modern IQ test in 1905, the
French psychologist issued a warning. A single number, he said, should never
be used as “a general device for ranking ... according to mental worth”.

Then for the best part of a century that created Mensa and eugenics, his
concerns were ignored. Now the largest online intelligence study has
concluded that Binet was right after all: IQ, scientists said yesterday, is
a “highly misleading” measure of intelligence.

More than 100,000 people took part in the study, published in the journal Neuron.
They each completed a test that